If this issue has a theme, it is combat photography. We begin with an article about one of the most-analyzed photographs of World War II, an aerial shot captured from the Japanese later in the war, taken during the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Four ship construction forensic analysts and photogrammetric experts have been examining every millimeter of this image since at least 1993, and their conclusion, which has been assaulted from several fronts, remains starkly consistent: The photo shows a Japanese midget submarine soon after firing torpedoes on Battleship Row. After two articles published five years ago in this magazine and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings , the authors take on several subsequent detractors here, most notably an intensive study by the University of Michigan. These men have a special kinship with us. We joined them on 11 September 2001 for the filming of a Discovery Channel documentary, which focused on unforgettable motion-picture film footage of the battleship Arizona (BB-39) being bombed at Pearl Harbor, just as terrorist attacks were being unleashed on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that morning.

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